Myrna Loy Portrait

This drawing of classic actress Myrna Loy, was completed at the end of April/early May 2012 and presented a different challenge. The soft look in the photo was a different texture than I usually work with, and simply using an ordinary paper napkin as a blending tool ended up serving pretty well. It’s one of my favorites of the recent string of projects.

Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly Portrait

After doing a marker drawing of Marty McFly, I had wanted to do a pencil portrait of one of my favorite film characters. After one attempt of a different source photo failed, I was pretty happy with this one’s outcome. And it’s another example of, what I feel is, drawing in the background adding to the result.

Peter Venkman Portrait

I believe this drawing was done last fall sometime, but it was a fun project. Aside from this film remaining at the top of my list of favorites, it was fun to experiment with a different size source photo… and then to decide whether or not I should add in the background. In the long run, I certainly was glad I did.

Harpo Marx Portrait

It’s no secret that Harpo Marx is one of my favorite classic actors. When I was unsure of what to choose as my next project, I opted for this gem of a photo as my next source. So here’s my second Harpo drawing…

Michael Scott (Steve Carell) Portrait

As  a fan of Steve Carell and The Office, I’ve tried to do some drawings of Steve several times over the years (the closest “good” one I’ve done was from his Evan Almighty promo photos, but I don’t like it enough to share it ). This sketch was completed over a couple days in April 2012.

Whoa Doc! That’s Heavy!

I was paging through a comic book recently and saw this really excellent drawing of a person that bordered on portrait quality while still being comic book art. In the drawing there was great detail where a lot of the features were defined with lines — like where little shadows and minute details would be.

I decided to try out this technique myself. I took a photo off my wall (I have framed 8x10s of movie characters on the wall leading down to our basement) and tried out a sketch in pencil. It wasn’t bad… I was moderately happy with it, but not completely, so I traced my drawing the next night onto marker paper and colored it in. After I was done, I realized I had made some mistakes AND over shadowed it.

I threw it out.

Then I took another photo down and tried it again. This time I TRIED to keep it cartoony and more to shapes, but it’s REALLY difficult. I naturally want to make it a realistic portrait.

I kept working on Michael J Fox as Marty McFly and tried to discipline myself not to overdo it. I may have a bit, but I’m mostly happy with the result. I want to try more of these!

Mark Ruffalo and Reese Witherspoon

For Christmas, 2004, I drew that picture from “Serendipity” for my wife Amy as one of her gifts. I was honestly shocked at how much she loved it. When I asked her why she liked that picture over others I’d done for her in the past, it was because I’d captured such a happy moment. When I realized that, despite drawing two scenes before from movies she absolutely loved, I’d naively picked two serious moments from them (and they were “Titanic” and “City Of Angels” to make matters worse).

On November 15, 2005, in the middle of the night while she was working her usual graveyard shift at the hospital, I searched through some stills online from romantic films we’d seen till I selected this one from “Just Like Heaven.” While this moment in the film is a bittersweet moment, I’d hoped she would connect with it and feel it’s a warm image like the one I’d done for her before. I started the drawing around 3 AM and worked on it on and off for weeks up until December 23rd when I reluctantly decided it was done [enough]. So here you have it! The finished product is 9 x 12, drawn in varying degrees of graphite pencils on bristol board paper.

MacGyver (Richard Dean Anderson) Sketch

This one of Richard Dean Anderson (MacGyver) was sketched on special charcoal paper using strictly graphite pencils. The paper was hard to work with, but it creates a sketchier look– if you want that. However, I only used this paper once after this drawing and haven’t touched it since. I drew Mac for one of my best friends at the time for her 18th birthday. The reference used was a picture downloaded from a MacGyver fan site I found while surfing the net.